New Audi A8 2010/2011 teased

The 'adjusted' A8 2010 / 2011 tease from Audi

I think ‘Teased’ is probably over-egging the reality. What we actually have is what looks like a grey-haired German accountant standing next to a car under a sheet. But this is in fact Michael Dick – Audi’s Board Member for Technical Development – standing next to the new Audi A8. Actually, before we tweaked the levels on the photo you couldn’t even see the outline of the A8. You can now – at the expense of image quality – but at least it gives us a bit more idea.

The new Audi A8 was supposed to be a 2010 car – revealed this year at the Frankfurt Motor Show. But for a variety of reasons – the ‘Economy’ being one – Audi has pushed back the launch to next year (or maybe the very end of 2009), effectively making the new Audi A8 a 2011 car.

The current Audi A8 has soldiered on since 2003 with nothing more than a minor tweak or two. And it’s a fine car, if a little bland. But the A8 is one area Audi are struggling to conquer. The BMW 7 Series and the Mercedes S Class are the default buys in this sector, and the new Jaguar XJ will be very strong competition. So Audi need to do something special. But one thing we are pretty sure about is that Audi will drop the S8 and A8 W12.

The S8 is a good car, but has not sold well. And it’s a bit harsh. So Audi are not planning on having an S8 on the new range and nor are they going to use the big W12 6.0 litre in the A8. But they may well drop a V10 in the A8 for a range-topper.

The 2010/2011 Audi A8 will not have the W12 or the S8's V10

So what will the new A8 look like? Well, you can see here the sketch Audi released of the new A8 a while back. It does look good, but we all know how close reality is to design sketches – not very. But the ‘Tease’ above does seem to show a car with a more aggressive profile, even if the back end seems nothing like the sketch.

Guess we’ll just have to wait a bit longer for any real meat. Could be the 2011 Audi A8 will look just like the sketches and have a W12 S8 version to boot! We’ll see.